


last to fade

by Trilies



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Millefiore timeline, Nonbinary Character, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 10:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4133403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trilies/pseuds/Trilies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mammon's last breath is of rain and gunpowder. Before they make their choice, they consider lives lost and the options they have. </p>
<p>There's not a lot. </p>
<p>Set during the Millefiore timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	last to fade

Colonello’s blood is still warm on their coat when Mammon finds a safe space for them to collapse on trembling legs. For not the first time but perhaps the last, the illusionist despises their cursed body. They’ve never had much height to them, never been a fighter in the way Reborn or Fon are- were- but dammit any length to their legs would be better than none at all. 

Then again… Around them, the world spins and their head pounds, and Mammon isn’t half certain that the way their body shakes isn’t from more than just exhaustion. Their stomach gives a pained clench- it wants to expel everything inside of it but there’s nothing except acid there now. Mammon doesn’t have anything else left to give. Goddamn Anti Tri-ni-set Radiation. If only Verde had made something useful before the Millefiore had taken out one of the world’s finest Box Makers. The very same which are hunting for Mammon, now, as they take in a deep breath through a pained throat before going silent as they hear a hunting party pass by the building they’ve cloistered themself away in. 

Verde is dead, and Colonello’s blood is still warm on their coat. It smells more like gunpowder and rain than copper, and Mammon remembers the color of his eyes more vividly than they want to. They’d only seen him once before the curse, that foolish child of a soldier with a grin on his face as he’d shown up behind them all, but then Mammon had kept walking. They’d dismissed him, then. Mammon half wishes they’d dismissed him a week prior when he’d had that same grin on his now childish face as they’d stumbled upon each other in this half empty town and he’d said, “Let’s do an alliance, hey!” He’d had the same grin when he’d looked back at them from the barrel of his gun, saying he’d watch their back as they crafted their illusions. 

Mammon doesn’t know if that same grin had been on his face when he’d taken a piercing Lightning flame to his chest. They hadn’t stuck around that long, only ran. What more was there to do? Mammon knows death when it happens right in front of them. There’d been no hope.

The sound of the hunting party fades away, and Mammon waits another few minutes before they let themself breathe out. There’s no more running now, of course. They’re all spent. A full week, they and Colonello have been fighting off these Millefiore scum who replace one another like rats, and there’s no more to them anymore. They’ve used up even the reserves of Mist they keep stored away in Fantasma, but the salamander can do nothing else now. She clings to Mammon’s shoulders blearily, golden skin dull and faded, wheezing for breath that’s not coming. Just like her owner, her origin, she’s all used up. Mammon feels their heart freeze up as they gently stroke her head. 

Is this how the other Arcobaleno felt before the end?

Probably not Skull, Mammon thinks before wanting to laugh half from delirium and half because what an idiot. He’d been the first to go, the fool, and they know from the reports scavenged that the Millefiore had no idea what they’d gotten into when trying to kill him. Even the weakest Arcobaleno was still an Arcobaleno in the end. It’d taken apparently  _forever_  to take him down and then  _keep_  him down. Mammon chokes down a laugh at the thought, the moron who hadn’t known how to die properly, and then it’s a sob- less sorrow and more rage, or at least that’s what they’d tell anyone if there was anyone left to tell. 

Skull first. Verde next. After that, of course, you go after the strongest, and the bile on the back of Mammon’s tongue is a side effect of anger and not radiation. The strongest hitman in the world-  _ha_. The best martial artist in history-  _ha_! For all their boasts, who’s the last one out of their number still standing? Mammon tells themself it’s from radiation poisoning that there’s tears pricking at the corner of their eyes as they force weak legs to wobble from one room to another. 

(If only they had a chance to yell at Fon one more time- to shove Death to the side like an overbearing waiter so that they could fist their hands in that glaring red robe of his because how dare he! How dare he? The strongest martial artist in the world wasn’t supposed to die like that, not before the two of them could settle things once and for all, not before Mammon could force him to acknowledge their skill. Who told him he was allowed to die?)

Skull, Verde, Reborn, Fon, and now Colonello- and he hadn’t even  _had_  to die, the self sacrificial idiot. If Mammon only had more energy to them, they’d stomp their foot in frustration, but it’s taking everything they have just to fumble into a small little kitchen cupboard beneath a sink and hide away. They’d never asked for a savior. For him to do that. But then again… Pushing their hood back, Mammon goes through the pockets of their coat and their small fingers pull out a pill that’s just barely visible in the gloom. On their shoulders still, Fantasma gives a quiet trill in their ear. 

Maybe he’d figured out what Mammon knows now. 

There’s no way out now. This is it. 

Mammon tries to swallow, and it hurts. Ever since they were a child- a proper one instead of this farce- everything they’ve ever done has been to survive and claw their way to the top. Not once have they ever wanted to die for any reason. Not glory, not other people, no reason at all. Money and survival, that’s all they’ve wanted out of life. Yet there’s no way to survive this. They’re too weak. They’ve used up everything they have. 

Yet they’re prideful. As one of the  _I Prescelti Sette_ , after all, how couldn’t they be? They’re the best illusionist in the world, they’re Varia quality, they are entitled to their own damn pride. Mammon grits their teeth together at the thoughts, and one small hand clenches into a fist. 

They’re all of those things, and so they’re certainly not going to let themself be taken out by some twobit Millefiore trash  _grunt_. Hopefully their boss will understand. 

Thinking of him has Mammon pause, swaying dizzily just slightly, and the illusionist’s near perpetual frown eases up for just a moment into a smirk that’s not quite there. Then again, Xanxus likely won’t understand. That stubborn violent boss of theirs, of course he won’t. He’s the type who’d go down burning half the rest of the world at the same time, a churning violent stormy sky filled with rage and bloodshed, but he’s grown up well enough in the time Mammon has been with this Varia. He’s a fine enough Varia commander- he would have been a fine enough Vongola Decimo too if only that’d been in fate’s cards. 

Maybe the rest of the Varia won’t understand either. Maybe one or two of them will. (Mammon is delirious enough to say that they’d put money on it being Squalo- they’ve known him nearly as long as Xanxus, and he’s always caught onto their reasonings better.) Either way, it doesn’t matter. All they need to understand is that Mammon’s participation into the Varia has always been conditional. It’s always been business, and they’ve always done only what they’ve done because they’ve been paid for it. 

Since Day 1, Mammon has always held the right to step away whenever the pay hasn’t been good enough. That’s what they’re doing now. 

They’re stepping away. 

Besides, Mammon thinks as they try to gather saliva in a rather dry mouth, there’s one last gamble they can take. There’s one more risk available to them. 

There’s one last Arcobaleno who isn’t themself. There’s still the sky. 

Viciously and suddenly, they wish that Luce was still alive. They’d actually liked Luce, as much as they knew how to like anyone, and Luce had  _been_  there amongst the rest of them. She’d known them all, had accepted them all, had made the best goddamn amaretti cookies the world had probably ever known. (It’s weird, the things you want so intensely before you die- Mammon feels weak and dizzy and pained, and they’ve vomited up everything their stomach had left to give, yet right now they want almost nothing more than Luce’s cookies and her warmth nearby.) 

But Luce has been dead for many years now. There’s only her granddaughter, a replacement that Mammon has never met but knows is with the very family that’s responsible for the decimation of the Arcobaleno. 

Is it right to trust in someone like that? Is it smart? Will this child even bring them all back or just continue being a betrayer? 

Mammon doesn’t know. They’re the illusionist, not the seer. But they don’t have a choice now but to put their trust in a sky they’ve never seen. It’s all they can do. 

There’s enough saliva now, although not nearly as much as Mammon wants, and they finally push the pill into their mouth to swallow it down. It’s a thick weight in their small throat. Hurts, too. But every bit of them hurts now, so what’s one more thing like this? It’s a sleeping pill that could take out an elephant, and they’re a baby- the effects should be hitting soon and hard. With the time they have left, Mammon coaxes Fantasma down from their shoulders to wrap around the chained pacifier that hangs from their neck. The salamander complies weakly, nipping at their fingers as she does so. “Good girl,” Mammon murmurs, forcing the words out from themself even as it gets hard to speak.

Mammon’s last breath is of gunpowder and rain.


End file.
